‘I’ve heard talk of him.’
‘I’m looking for his address.’
‘Hold on,’ the curate said. He went off into the back of the shop. After a while he came back.
‘The basket boy works in the grocery end during the day,’ he said. ‘He knows the house.’
He gave Mulhall directions, tracing out the turns on the counter with a finger he had moistened in porter dribbles.
‘Number 43,’ he said at last, ‘here.’ He drew a circle on one of the lines.
‘Thanks,’ Mulhall said.
He went out into the street again. The rain drove hard against him. He bent a little towards it. Otherwise he did not mind it. All his life he had faced the weather from the seat of his cart. Wind, cold, rain, snow, they were enemies he had long mastered. Only children he pitied. And old people. Weather, among other things, killed both. One thing you couldn’t change. The weather. But you could protect them against it. Proper clothes would do it. Boots for the feet, coats for the body. The poorer and hungrier they were, the less fitted to stand up against weather. The poorer and the hungrier, the more often they had to face it. To chop up and sell firewood. To go out gathering the debris of the city. Who would stop that? Larkin would, with Mulhall doing his part in all the ways that he could.
He was among the cottages now. He looked out for street names. There was a lamp at each corner, but the name plates were hard to make out in the driving rain. He knocked at several doors for directions and went down street after street where cottages huddled under the downpour and overfull gutters splashed noisily. At last, in a cul-de-sac that the wall of the railway line sealed off, he found the house. Keever himself answered the door. Mulhall recognised him. He gripped him by the lapels and dragged him quickly into the street.
‘I want you,’ he said.
The cottage door, caught by the wind, moved slowly, gathered pace, closed with a loud bang.
‘Mulhall.’
‘You’re a scab, Keever.’
‘Let me go.’
‘Not until I show you and every other scab in this town what happens to strike-breakers.’
‘I’m breaking no strike. Let me go.’
They were against the railway wall. High, featureless, blackened with soot and rain, it rose above both of them. Keever braced himself against it.
‘You’re using charity parcels to break a strike.’
‘I’m serving the poor.’
‘You’re a liar. You’re selling them.’
Keever twisted but failed to free himself.
‘You’ll do six months’ hard if you touch me.’
‘Gladly,’ Mulhall said.
Keever pushed forward. Mulhall gave ground, then swung hard and connected. He dragged Keever to his feet again. They struggled together until Mulhall landed again. Then he began to beat up Keever, on the body, on the head, until Keever lay against the railway wall, rain and blood mixing together on his swollen face. He fixed Mulhall with eyes that were only half open. He struggled for breath.
‘Six months,’ he said.
Mulhall turned and left him. Halfway up the street he heard a door opening and a woman’s voice calling. Then he heard the woman scream out. He continued to walk at the same pace. He reached the corner, turned it, continued his deliberate stride.
In the morning the police came for him. They hammered on the door while he and his son were getting ready for work. They entered without ceremony.
‘I’ll go with you,’ he said.
Mrs. Mulhall sat on the bed. She was crying. His son looked on but said nothing.
‘Who’s this?’ the police said.
‘My son. He’s a messenger in the Independent.’
‘Where was he last night?’
‘In his bed. He’d nothing to do with it.’
They accepted that. Mulhall walked between them down the stairs and out on to the street. The sky was still dark, but the early-morning lamps shone out from windows above and about them.
‘You’ll be locked up for this,’ one of the policemen told him.
‘I’m not the first,’ Mulhall said, ‘and I won’t be the last.’
The lighted windows above and about him filled him with tenderness and smouldering anger. He was God and all his creatures were in bondage. He had been cruel, as God often seemed to be. But he had served them. When he came back he would serve them again. That was what his birth had been for. It was a good thing, in middle age, after years of despondency and search, to know why he had been born. He did not mind walking up the street, his arms pinioned by police; he would not mind the stares of the city as he was being dragged for trial. It did not matter, because he was entirely certain now about everything, about who he was and what God had made him for.
The justice said it was a disgraceful charge. He had beaten a man whose only sin was to work in Christian charity for the welfare of others. He had insulted, by his conduct, the person of a priest. His conduct was an example of what could be expected in the future from an anarchical movement, if decisive steps were not taken to suppress it. Mulhall said nothing in defence. He was sentenced, as Keever had predicted, to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
Father O’Connor mounted the steps to the pulpit and looked at the congregation for some moments with unusual gravity. He had already assisted Father Giffley with the distribution of holy communion, because it was the monthly mass of the men’s sodality and there were many communicants. Behind him Father Giffley sat to the side of the altar, his biretta on his head, his hands resting palms downwards on each knee, his head slightly bowed. Father O’Connor read the notices and the names of those who had died recently or whose anniversaries occurred. Then he signed himself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and began to speak.
‘My dear brethren: For some time I have had it in mind to talk to you on a subject which has been a source of ever-increasing distress, not only to me, but to those in Holy Orders who are far above me in holiness, in wisdom, in experience. I might have continued to hesitate in the hope—indeed, in the confident belief—that the advice of your priests would triumph over the promptings of evil men. I refer to those who have been working among you for some years now to spread discontent and a godless creed.’
He stopped to assess their measure of attention. It was not great. The hour was early, they had come without breakfast to receive holy communion, the church was damp and unusually cold. The odour of tightly packed bodies made the air unpleasant. Throughout mass someone had been coughing persistently. It began again now in the silence. A chorus of coughs and snuffles responded. Father O’Connor found it necessary to raise his voice.
‘Our hopes have not been fulfilled and our advice has gone unheeded. Only a few days ago, in this parish of ours, a good and conscientious man suffered a brutal assault.’
The coughing stopped. He had their attention.
‘The hand of the law has reached out to the perpetrator of this outrage; he is now paying the penalty. With him—we need not concern ourselves any further. But what must concern us very deeply indeed is the reason given for the attack I have just mentioned. The reason put forward was that the unfortunate victim was attempting to interfere against a strike engineered by professional exploiters of discontent. The allegation, of course, was not true. The man was simply performing a Christian duty, distributing charity in Christ’s name, offering a little relief to the destitute. But the incident serves well to illustrate the attitude of these self-styled Reformers towards any activity of religion. It shows their hatred of it, their anger at it, their determination to oppose the work of God at any cost and in any shape or form.’
That rang effectively. He paused, but it was spoiled again by the long rasping coughs of one man. Before the rest began unconsciously to join him, Father O’Connor spoke.